On pre-filtering with Retinex in color image retrieval

We have examined the performance of various color-based retrieval strategies when coupled with a pre-filtering Retinex algorithm to see whether, and to what degree, Retinex improved the effectiveness of the retrieval, regardless of the strategy adopted. The retrieval strategies implemented included color and spatial-chromatic histogram matching, color coherence vector matching, and the weighted sum of the absolute differences between the first three moments of each color channel. The experimental results are reported and discussed.